I love this book of the Bible - it’s probably my favorite book ever (which is quite a statement considering what’s going on between those two covers). Ecclesiastes is filled with balanced despair and hope, seemingly random threads of pessimism and optimism, and finally at the climax of it all, an exhortation to follow God while you’re young. After all, the preacher guy already went through all the crap and figured out that it wasn’t a very good plan.

On the other hand, there’s this: “Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?” Chapter 7:16. I know I’ve probably asked this before, but what exactly is that saying? That’s probably one of the most shocking passages I’ve read in the Bible, ever. If it means what it looks like it means at first glance, it’s basically saying not to go crazy being righteous (because after all you’re going to die anways). Alternately - as the Jews would have you believe - it means don’t try to be more righteous than the Torah itself says. That would be a nice shot in the arm to the Pharisees of days past. Or maybe it means that you shouldn’t invent your own righteousness.

But still, gotta love that book.

This is a work of fiction, just so you know.

When do you stop?

It’s always a good question, and one I don’t often enough ask myself. When to give up, to let go, to move on, to do all those things. And it’s not just girls either, it’s cars, loved ones, jobs, habits, lifes lived, and places inhabited. It’s a whole lot of things. I’ll be honest with you: I don’t do any of these things very often. Sometimes I call it “liking what I have”, and sometimes I’m a little more transparent and call it “being afraid to move”.

Yesterday that all ended. I walked into my boss’s office unannounced and told him how deeply dissatisfied I was with my job. He looked at me blankly, still holding his pen in midstroke as if wondering where this was all coming from. He asked me a few questions, but it became obvious quickly that I wasn’t gunning for a raise or trying to weasel out a better benefits package. Leaving? Yep, leaving. And that was that.

I sold my car to my neighbor for a couple hundred dollars knowing it would probably end up chopped for parts or something. He towed it away the next morning before I woke. Signing the papers, I stood in the empty space in my driveway as a few neighboorhood children looked on, realizing for the first time exactly what I was doing. Crazy. Well, that’s the new me. The insane guy. The wierdo from nowhere.

I packed up my stuff. Gave some of it away, sold a lot of it on Ebay. Slimmed down my earthly posessions to a few thousand Ogg files and some clothes. Suprising how much money a guy can spend of stuff and end up holding two grand in his hand going “Oh, wow, I’ve wasted my life.”

That was it. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone, not even the girl. An airline ticket and three hours of waiting and I would be gone. But she knew - she did. She had to understand that I would leave eventually. You have to scratch the itch sometime.

But maybe I’ll come back. Hey, you never know - I do things like that. Disappear. Come back again. She’d approve - God knows the countless times she’s vanished only to be just around the corner when I went looking. But this isn’t a movie. She’s not waiting for me at the airport, nor is she rushing up to kiss me, tell me to stay. She probably thinks she’ll see me on Saturday. She’s probably reading right now, or emailing me or something.

I’ll check, on the plane. I’ll email her back and tell her all things I could never say close up. Hi. I love you. I’ve waited for you. I got sick of it the other day, and I’m leaving for a while. Maybe forever. I love you. I’ll sign my name and that will be that.

I hear the boarding call. Suddenly it all come rushing in on me, the enormity of what I’m doing, like ears popping as a plane ascends. How crazy this must look, and how much I’d like to kiss her one more time. Push the thought aside.

Getting on the plane, I look at all the unfamiliar faces and know that wherever I go it’ll always be like this: people I barely know except as nearby faces. But then, the plane begins taxiing. Then I realize the knot just under my heart has unravelled and I feel fine. I’m getting somewhere, I think, even if I don’t know exactly where I’m going.

Yeah, so I was at the Blessing Centre serving homeless people food and Mary was like “yeah, I have a cold coke in the car.” And I was like “not for long!” and that was that - or was it?

We were on our way home, she in her car and me in mine, when I looked over and there she was sipping daintily on her drink. Well we just can’t have that, can we? Being the impulsive, crazy person I am, I unbuckled my belt, charged over to her car and jumped through the open window. The light was a-changing, so I raced back to my car and buckled up and got back in again. Tried to zoom away, but the brake was up. Put the brake down. Looked behind me, and behold a cop. I was like “a cop!” and because my mirror was the wrong height for some reason that I don’t undersand I didn’t see that he was trying to pull me over.

Apparently in Brantford it’s a crime to jump in other people’s cars.

He asked me for my license, asked me if I was the son of some guy named “Bob” of the same last name, and told me to keep the fun low-key.

Yes, officer. I will go keep the fun low key. All in all - pretty darn embarassing.

I miss being in love
and not feeling like the world
is crashing in around my
shoulders all the time:
it seemed so firm not so long
ago, when the earth
seemed to have its
axis in your spine
and everything turned
on that succulent fulcrum:
back when every tune
was something to
listen to and
judge wanting in light
of our conversations,
how we would
explore the tundra and
the desert and the rainforest
in the span of an hour:
how I wrapped my arms around
you and called you safe,
and how you turned
suddenly to the side
and disappeared.

This is our confession
that we need you, dearest Lord.
we’ve failed to learn the lesson
that experience affords

Oh, these idols holy in our sight
golden calfs of things we’ve gotten right.

How could we so soon forget heart-broken Calvary?
Be the clay for eyes that have forgotten how to see.
Lay these atlars low and in submission at your feet
till the day we come on bended knee.

This is a confession
of our arrogance and pride
but water flows for healing
from your ever-wounded side.

Oh, these rules we make to take your place,
where once we stood and trembled at your grace.

How could we so soon forget heart-broken Calvary?
Be the clay for eyes that have forgotten how to see.
Lay these atlars low and in submission at your feet
till the day we come on bended knee.

Will you not forgive us
and give us life anew?
Will you stand in mercy
as we come to worship you?

Oh, we lay our praises at your feet
and crawl to where the waves will wash us clean.

How could we so soon forget heart-broken Calvary?
Be the clay for eyes that have forgotten how to see.
Lay these atlars low and in submission at your feet
till the day we come on bended knee.

If there’s anything I hate more than celebrities and musicians commenting on the world and politics like they somehow deserve a large voice because they can pretend to be a chair or play a guitar, you need to tell me about it so that I can get mad at that thing instead of this thing.

Take Live8. Ignore the rank hypocricy for a moment, and look at what they actually intended to do with the series of concerts. Was it to raise money for a cause or something noble like that? Nope. They did it raise awareness, mostly. But what the heck? Does anyone out there really not know about this place called “Africa” and how it has quite a few poor people and a crapload of people with aids? Is there still a person who isn’t aware? Nope. Pretty much not.

What Live8 should have been doing is not trying to raise Africa’s profile and foster awareness. Oh, we’re aware, my generation is. We just don’t care that much. You want to try fostering something? Try making us care, somehow. Just try it. I dare you.

We do care about music, however. Mostly because it’s an easy thing to care about and we’re terminally lazy, especially culturally and spiritually.

The organizer of Live8 was quoted saying something about how “rock music is the language of this generation” - and I hope to God he’s wrong, but he’s probably right. Look at all the good rock has done. It’s just a style of music, sure. But the culture surounding it is in desparate need of redemption (and not CCM-style redemption, not copy-catting and catch-phrasing and t-shirting) but actual redemption. In that sense, it’s pretty useless to help people with a bunch of concerts. And all the grandiose talk about Live8 is just that: talk. Gibberish, actually.

It’s like a guy was trying to build a skyscraper and decided the best way to do that was wearing a shirt with a picture of a brick on it.

As so many wonderful posts begin, I had a girlfriend. So, apparently, did Percy Bysse Shelley. In fact, he had several. But that seems somehow to be beside the point: Mr Shelley didn’t have an internet connection, much less one that decides to randomly disconnect based on mood. That is also beside the point.

But I had a girlfriend that disliked my personality. Alright, so she liked me in private, up close and personal - just, not so much in public. I was, she said, two different people. There’s a problem there, of course. Public and private settings demand different things of different people, and they present a different set of opportunities. That is to say that it’s impossible to abstract a person from their surroundings.

It’s like a wife asking her husband why he’s not the same person at a baseball game as he is when they’re off somewhere cannoodling or something. The question is, why would you want him to be? Maybe he’s funny and charming in public because he feels nervous in crowds. Maybe he feels relaxed around you and likes to be serious and likes to take care of you. Does that seem like two different people? Maybe. I’d rather like to think of it as different facets of a personality manifesting themselves in different situations.

Eternity sleeps in
winter clothes to the left
and to the right
as time paints her
laquered victims grey
silk and spit
caught up after all
in the minutae,
the gears and wheels once
set spinning entropic
to the song of thirty-two
invaders to hindered
sweetness,
back when this weary
black evening began
to lessen
slightly and
a splash of red marked
the sky’s spleen
to the left and to the right;
somewhere the
cogs are grinding together
and
slipping out of key;
the feedback prays
to a quantum mechanic
more tunemaker
than shelfbuilder
who has set
down the pen suddenly
- oh, exquisite schematic! -
and slipped the
toque up over forever’s eyes
as if to say
good morning darling
and
there’s an ending afoot;
there he stands
animating those laquered
waxen figures whose
cheeks now flush with
colour as
he points with a smile
or frown to the left and to the right
and bids eternity work
her magic:
daylight enters
the world like a scalpel
to the sternum:
all laid bare mystically
and presently
morning’s long absence
seems a breathtaking second;
no more, no less,
no further - freeze frame -
there is a centaur
somewhere to the right
is to the left and
he’s pointing
up the mountain.

When you became
a waterfall
I ducked beneath
it and found air
on the othe side -
you never knew it
was there,
did you?
Let me
take your hand
and fix you.
Lead you back
to
some where
you can
stop staring
at the ground!
Warmth, love -
warmth
and sun
on your shoulders.
Eyes to the
sky, darling,
eyes to the sky.